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I love Leftover Art! The messes we make while we’re trying so hard to be perfect can be immensely more satisfying than anything we plan.

Here is my latest Leftover Art project. I started out with one idea and got a little surprise at the end:

How It Started

I had this great idea! What happens when you use good old-fashioned Crayons to add more color to silk flowers? Pretty cool, but needed something . . .

Ooh la la yellow paint! It dried quickly although it seemed to take forever. I was so anxious to see how the pink wax would pop out.

Yay! The pink popped. But still needed more . . .

And yet a third coloring with a little purple added. Look at that luscious color and texture! This flower is goin’ places!

I couldn’t stop myself. One . . . more . . . thing . . . fuzzy yarn!

What else to do with my groovy new flower but put it on a greeting card? Notice I used a crayon to make the paper border stand out better. Typically, I use a black or bronze marker but this card called for something a little more waxy and colorful.

There! That was fun! I made a few more flowers with different colors.

Now time to clean up . . . Oops. What do we have here? Very interesting. Now I can’t go to bed until I think of something clever for this cool souvenir of my Crayon work.

About 3 minutes later (but still up past my bedtime).

Don’t bury your treasures by stepping all over them as they fall at your feet.

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I’ve been organizing pictures and came across some odds and ends I’d like to share.

Here’s a fun card I made for my youngest grandson. I can’t remember exactly where I got the blister package (I save all kinds–HUGE FUN–KIDS LOVE IT TOO!). It was a little tough squeezing in all of the stuff . . .

This is a sweet wedding cake I decorated a few years ago for our daughter’s backyard wedding. We just ordered a plain frosted cake from the grocery store bakery and I added the decorations. The little bride and groom were just a few dollars from a craft store. I just wish I would have been brave enough to use fresh flowers. There are so many gorgeous ones on Pinterest! Check out my wedding boards: Really Pretty Weddings and Really Pretty Weddings 2.

Earlier this year I helped my pre-school Sunday School kids make these super cool capes from old tee shirts. Simply cut off the entire front (leaving the neck area). They absolutely loved it. The crosses were made out of duct tape which they adore. I’m sure I got this idea from a Pinterest pin!

These two photos are of my laundry room. I painted it a few months ago. I was excited about using a rich dark brown but I had to use lots of self-discipline not to do more than one wall. The creamy white and the floral curtains are the perfect balance to keep it fresh, don’t you think?

And here’s the view looking from my laundry room into my kitchen. It’s so homey I’m gonna never leave!

I love this picture. It was a dark and windy night!

Our church has a ladies’ luncheon every spring, featuring a table decorating competition. Yay! I won I won I won!

Don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones. — Unknown

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. — Albert Camus

I enjoyed a few quiet vacation days last week to do some much-needed painting, cleaning, and even a little fall primping:

I couldn’t say good-bye to my beautiful anniversary roses from hubby. I simply pulled off the flower heads and added them to my basket of squash and smallish pumpkins. Love how the red makes it pop. Wouldn’t this be a beautiful color scheme for a wedding? With a white wedding dress of course.

I had forgotten that I made this simple banner last fall. These little fellas are made of lace and yarn. No sewing. No fuss. Boo-tiful!

Don’t let the chilly wind scare you. Now is the time to cozy up and let your heart fall a bit!

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I realize that many people probably don’t like that I write poetry, do crafts, and post pretty pictures on the same page where I tweet about my anger at our liberal government for its attacks on life, freedom, religion, and innocence. You know, it’s all about branding ourselves, and we wouldn’t want to break our naive beliefs that we are all perfectly in line with the values and beliefs of everyone we know and every passerby on the street. I have been tempted to start separating into several more focused blogs because it is not my intent to offend anyone with my beliefs, plus I have a gazillion different interests. Yet, I shall stay Perfectly Messy. It exactly sums up the stage of human development we are in. We have put ourselves out here on social media, mostly with much self-control and selective self-promotion, while unwittingly creating the opposite effect. We are losing control of what we expose of ourselves. It is scary yes. Will we use this amazing awareness of each other to advance our human experience, or just hide in fear? Will we pretend that if we avoid Facebook our sheltered worlds won’t change? Will we see the beauty of our vast wholeness while respecting the vast diversity inside and all around each of us? Will we be made more whole by overcoming the attacks on life, freedom, religion, and innocence?

Christians take communion to be reminded of Jesus’s promise that we are one in his body. This means we should stop looking for him in far off places. He is everywhere inside and all around us. We could literally be a spark in his very eye.

Have you ever heard this old story?

A Zen master said to a monk, “You must see the universe in your cup.” The monk looked into his cup, but didn’t see the universe, so he threw the cup away. The Zen master said, “Oh, poor cup. We think the cup is too small to hold the universe. Intellectually, we can’t see how it could fit. But wherever we go, the whole universe always appears–in a cup, a window, in a smile, in a word.”